Protecting Your Business from Lawsuit Happy Customers

We’ve all heard the stories. The woman who sued McDonald’s because they didn’t warn her coffee was hot. The parents who sued Honda when their drunk daughter was unable to release her seat belt. In some cases lawsuits are an easy way for individuals to claim or quick chunk of cash. On the other hand lawsuits could result from unexpected negligence on the part of an employee. Either way as long as you own a business, there is always the likelihood that you might be sued by unhappy customers. Whether you are a large chain or small mom and pop shop located in Dallas Texas, you might want to consider investing in business insurance.

What Type of Business Insurance Do I Need?

Just as there are various types of insurance, there are also various types of business insurance. To protect yourself from any potential customer lawsuit, you need liability insurance. Liability insurance will cover any medical expenses, attorney fees, and damages that are awarded to the customer by a settlement or a judgments made by a judge in court.

General liability insurance will protect your business from lawsuits that arise due to injuries or property damage that occur on your premises, because of your products, or due to your advertisements.

Product Coverage Liability will protect your business from any lawsuits that arise when a customer is injured while using a product that you made or manufactured.

What Liability Coverage Does Not Cover?

If you decide to protect your business with liability insurance, you should be aware that there are some things that liability insurance does not cover.

Car accidents. If you have a delivery service, you will need to protect yourself with car insurance.

Intentional Actions. It must be noted that liability insurance will only cover accidents. If a customer is injured when an employee deliberately attacks a customer, liability insurance will not cover any expenses.

Punitive Damages are usually not covered. Punitive damages awarded in order to reform or deter the defendant or others from repeating the actions that led to the lawsuit.

A Few Other Methods You Can Use To Protect Your Business.

Insurance should never be the only safeguard you have in place to protect your business from lawsuit happy customers. Here are a few steps that you can take to decrease the chance that an angry or ambitious customer will take a chunk of your assets:

Have strict safety policies. Make sure that employees know that they must clean up a hazardous mess as soon as it occurs or is brought to their attention. Known safety hazards that are ignored by employees can cost you money.

If you are a small business, you should attempt to build relationships with your customers. It is harder to sue someone that they like than it is someone that they hate or don’t know.

Have a strict employee behavioral code. Employees that verbally or physically assault customers can lead to lost revenue and lawsuits against your company that not even liability coverage will cover.

New businesses are hard enough to keep afloat without worrying about a customer suing your company for physical, mental, or psychological injuries that arise while in your store, looking at your advertisements, or using your products. If you can afford business insurance at this time, I would suggest becoming protected with business insurance as soon as possible. If you cannot, you need to be tread carefully, and not cut any corners.